


A Baby Calls

by winethroughwater



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Hilda’s POV, Spellcest, companion piece to When a Spoon Falls, further indulging myself, original child character - Freeform, ya'll are going to get so tired of this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2019-10-26 22:54:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17755043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winethroughwater/pseuds/winethroughwater
Summary: "She wishes she could give this to Zelda. A child to keep. A child to be hers, theirs. One they weren’t duty-bound to keep at niece-distance no matter how much she felt daughter-close."--“When a Spoon Falls” from Hilda’s point-of-view. (You need to have read that one first.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. So we will see how this goes. I wanted a way to write some of the scenes that folks asked about in the comments and that I had thought about but didn't include because the other story was Zelda POV. Please let me know what you think.

One has know her intimately for the last half hour; the other for the better part of two centuries.

 

It simply isn’t fair to compare what she just experienced with Cee to what she feels with Zelda.

 

Cee also does _not_ talk to her like she is an idiot most of the time and he has _never_ killed her or lied to her.  

 

If she were going to work with anyone else, it would be Cee. They have so much in common, more, in fact, than she probably ever has with Zelda.

 

But it hadn’t been enough to work up _that_ feeling, the one that apparently had nothing to do with sex.

 

She hadn’t expected _that_ to be great either.

 

It was sweet and gentle and slow and she does know how to tilt her hips and squeeze her thighs to find her pleasure this way. While it might have been her first time in the flesh, it was not her first time with leather or ivory or silicone.

 

Her gasp near the end is genuine.

 

But she also knows it has been a mistake the moment he kisses her after and she wonders how long she has to stay without it seeming strange.

 

 _Just friends_ looms large in her mind.

 

It’s disappointing.  

 

It’s frightening.  

 

It's really exactly what she expected.  

 

* * *

  

Guilt stacks like stones on her chest.  

 

She kisses him goodnight and his hand lingers at the small of her back.

 

His smile is so lovely.

 

She should have never brought him into this.

 

* * *

 

Zelda will find out.

 

She’s certain she will say or do something that will give herself away.

 

More guilt.  More stones.

 

She may be sick from it before the night is over.

 

* * *

 

Zelda has never made any claims of faithfulness.

 

 _Do whom thou wilt_ isn’t a far cry from _do as thou wilt_ and her sister is devout.

 

What had happened tonight had nothing to do with revenge.

 

But the fact remains that Zelda had _had_ that man in their house, in their very room, and no amount of sage could erase its lingering after effects.

 

At least Hilda hadn’t done that. She’d even had the decency to clean herself up in his bathroom before she came home.

 

Washing away the evidence like she’d committed some crime--she feels rather like she has when she sees Zelda in the kitchen, pretending she is not waiting up for her.

 

She isn’t made for this.

 

So she simply tells Zelda.

 

* * *

 

Zelda does not react well.

 

* * *

 

It’s been so long since Zelda has come at her this way.

 

She will die tonight.  

 

The question is only what size the death will be.

 

The buttons on her dress pop when confronted with Zelda’s impatience.  She hears them fall, will have to find them before breakfast tomorrow. Zelda pushes the fabric from her shoulders; she helps by shoving it past her hips and kicking it away along with her shoes.

 

She is almost certain this death will be the smaller, sweeter kind--though the path there is _not_ going to be sweet.  She’d had that earlier tonight and this is what comes after. This is what she chose.

 

There will be no repairing the antique lace Zelda’s nails have just dug through to reach her.

 

* * *

 

The table’s edge is pressing into her in a way that will leave bruises. She’ll have to heal them later herself.  Generally she cherishes the marks that Zelda leaves in her wake, the ones her sister couldn’t hold back—the ones that are easily hidden under her clothes from niece and nephew—but she doesn’t think she wants the weeks’ long reminder of that look in Zelda’s eyes when she’d told her.  

 

The way Zelda has caught her at the back of the neck, the way she’s pressing her down until her cheek is rubbing against the tabletop with every thrust of her fingers--there very well might be a bruise there too.

 

She pushes herself up onto her elbows, despite the warning pinch of fingernails at her hairline, and something changes in the angle Zelda’s fingers are driving into her.

 

She moans, because, Satan knows, _Zelda_ knows how to chase the most minute responses of her body.

 

“Come, sister, or I _will_ kill you.”

 

And it’s gone just like that.

 

Zelda’s voice is killing-stroke vulnerable.

 

She risks it.

 

“Let me up, Zelds.”

 

* * *

 

She would have sworn it wasn’t possible, but Zelda looks for all the world like she’s afraid of her.

 

“Show me that you don’t _only_ want me now because someone else does.”

 

* * *

 

Zelda’s mouth soothes the ache she’d caused, keeps at her until there’s a much deeper ache.

 

Her tongue steals her breath but it comes back in a gasp that sounds like her sister’s name.

 

* * *

 

Things are not as awkward with Cee as she had anticipated.

 

They laugh about it in the end.

 

He says maybe they should rewind and go on an actual date and she agrees.

 

* * *

 

She spends her nights in Zelda’s bed.

 

Maybe they are making up for lost time.

 

Maybe they are both proving a point.

 

* * *

 

Cee is gone and the stones on her chest are back.

 

It is her fault. Somehow.  She is being justly punished.

 

She has nowhere to go now that the shop is closed. Nowhere to be. No one outside of her family to talk to.

 

It stings to be the one left even if she knows she has no right to feel it. Even if she knows very well it wouldn’t have lasted more than another week even if he hadn’t up and disappeared.

 

How pathetic she must look.

 

Zelda doesn’t even mock her.

 

* * *

 

A spoon slips off one of their mother’s best saucers and clatters to the floor.

 

She thinks of the old adage but doesn’t say it.

 

She just picks the spoon up off the floor and sits in on the counter to be washed later.

 

The last time she had said it Zelda had stolen a baby.

 

And just look how well that had turned out.

 

After Solstice, she’d all but moved back into her old room. She’d watched Zelda rocking Lettie to sleep those last few nights. Her heart broke to see her sister saying goodbye rather than goodnight.

 

She wishes she could give this to Zelda. A child to keep. A child to be hers, theirs. One they weren’t duty-bound to keep at niece-distance no matter how much she felt daughter-close.

 

It isn’t the first time she’s thought about it.

 

The summer before Edward had died she was forming a plan that she’d never gotten the nerve to propose to her sister.

 

But Zelda _would_ have been a part of it. _Had_ to be a part of it.

 

How else would they make a baby together?  

 

Beautiful strangers never say no to Zelda.

 

A warlock from a distant country they are unlikely to ever visit again. Exactly the right time of month. Herbs and potions to all but guarantee it. Ideally her mouth, her every sense, filled with Zelda while whoever it was filled her with a baby.

 

They’d travel with the baby in tow. Show her everything. Have a little house wherever they went so it always felt like home.

 

Her plan still had all the logic of a dream.

 

But then they’d gotten that call and everything had changed.

 

The thought of bringing someone into the world who could be taken away at any second was now unthinkable, abhorrent.

 

And there was Sabrina, lovely sweet Sabrina, who needed them so much. And Ambrose who needed them in a different way.

 

And they had made a family.

 

* * *

 

She bleeds each month like clockwork almost to the very hour.

 

That she hasn’t thought of it, or rather the absence of it, until this very moment is unlike her.

 

She’s been preoccupied.

 

* * *

 

 _Surely not_.

 

The Dark Lord may very well have a sense of humor but certainly it doesn’t run this much to the absurd.

 

* * *

 

She gives it another day. And then another.

 

She still knows the ingredients like the back of her hand even though she’s had no call to use them since she gave up midwifery for the mortuary business.

 

She laughs at herself, to herself, as she casts the spell.

 

She repaints her toenails, foot propped on the edge of the tub, as she waits because it is going to be nothing. Just some quirk of her system and she might as well get on with things that are real, like her need for a pedicure.

 

The liquid in the copper bowl hisses, turns blue.

 

Hilda gapes at it.

 

She runs the test for a second time and gets the same result:  positive.

 

She runs it for the third time, a charmed number.

 

Positive.

 

She is positively pregnant.

 

Incredulity turns to elation in the space of a few seconds.

 

Most of the troubling details fall away.

 

She brings her hand to her mouth to hold in the happiness about to spill out of her.

 

She fails.

 

It’s only later she realizes how truly dumbstruck she was that she hadn’t cleaned the counter up after herself.

 

* * *

 

She’s stretched out on her bed, trying to figure out the best way to share her news with her sister without aggravating Zelda’s blood pressure when she hears her sister’s voice and her niece’s, raised.

 

And coming from the bathroom.

 

She rarely curses but she does now, a blue streak until she steps into the bathroom.

 

Her whole family is there but it’s Zelda she addresses.

 

This is not the way she would have chosen to tell her. Not at all.

 

This is all wrong. Zelda has gone pale as death, looks about as steady on her feet as the undead.  

 

But Sabrina is happy.

 

 _Her_ happiness multiples, would be exponential if only Zelda would smile instead of looking as if she wanted to cry.

 

* * *

 

It’s just the two of them now.  (Or three and that thought makes her giddy.)

 

“Say something, sister.”

 

Zelda is just misunderstanding.

 

She reaches to take her hands. If only she’d listen and let her explain, but Zelda steps back as if she’d threatened her.

 

“How can you _smile_?” Zelda asks.

 

“What?”  

 

What a question—she laughs.

 

“Of course, I’m smiling, silly.  I’m happy.

 

“ _A baby_ , Zelda. We’re having a baby.”

 

It’s the first time she’s said it out loud and she’s in love with how it sounds.

 

She isn’t sure why Zelda should bring Cee up now.

 

 _They_ are having a baby.

 

He really has nothing to do with it at this point.

 

She steps closer and closer until Zelda is within kissing distance--because there will be kissing once Zelda has let this sink in.

 

“I meant _us_ , obviously. You and me.”

 

Zelda’s eyes are cold; her lips have tightened into a thin line.

 

Hilda frowns.

 

“What makes you think I have the least interest in helping you raise your bastard?”

 

* * *

 

Zelda tears her apart.

 

She listens and cries—quietly or it will only make Zelda worse.

 

She cowers like usual.

 

She can’t even find it in her to defend Sabrina when Zelda insults the very duality that makes their niece so much herself.

 

“You could always do the sensible thing and brew yourself a tea.”

 

That Zelda can look at her and suggest—

 

She finds a voice for one word: “No.”

 

“Or I could expedite the matter with a shove down the stairs.”

 

She finds exactly how much her palm burns when she slaps Zelda outside of a nightmare.

 

She’s never hit anyone in anger, but Zelda crosses a line neither of them knew was there when she threatens not only Hilda’s life but the new, fragile life within her.

 

She leaves and has no idea where she is going.

 

She only knows she needs to be away from Zelda.

 

* * *

 

“The babe is fine,” Desmelda says as soon as she opens the door and finds Hilda on the other side.

 

“Good.  But I’ve come about a different one.”

 

Her hand falls to her abdomen.

 

“How in Satan’s name did _that_ happen?”

 

She has to smile at Desmelda’s reaction. She can see how it is a bit of a shock.

 

Desmelda motions for her to come in.

 

“The way it usually does, unfortunately,” she explains and immediately regrets it.  “I don’t mean that.”

 

She covers her face with her hands.

 

“Now I’ve jinxed the poor thing and I’ve only known about it for a few hours.”

 

“Sit.”

 

She sinks into a worn chair facing the fire.

 

“Sister-of-yours isn’t at home weeping with joy then?”

 

“No.” Hilda doesn’t want to recall the way Zelda had looked, what she had said but it all comes unbidden, as do her tears. “She hates me now.”

 

In the room behind them, someone else starts to cry.

 

Desmelda goes to fetch Lettie.

 

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just shown up here. But I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

 

“Stay.”

 

Desmelda returns with baby Leticia in her arms.

 

So many stones on her chest now that she can hardly breathe.

 

“You know how much it hurt her to give Lettie up,” Hilda says. “This is salt in the wound.”

 

“Salt can heal but it burns first.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you want that wee one you are carrying?”

 

“Yes.”  So much already. But she’d never wanted it alone.

 

“I thought she’d want it too, deep down.

 

“Maybe it’s _me_ she doesn’t want. Or anything of mine.”

 

Leticia is still fussing, angry at being woken up.

 

“She wanted Lettie. Zelda loves her. She loves Sabrina.  

 

"Why doesn’t she want ours?”

 

“Did you come here for my advice?”

 

Hilda nods.

 

“Leave her. Go and be happy.”

 

Hilda knows she won’t and so does Desmelda.

 

The older witch shrugs and deposits Lettie into her arms.

 

“Get this one back to sleep. Good practice.”

 

She almost tells her that she doesn’t need any practice. She’d had plenty with Sabrina and with Lettie herself but it is warm by the fire and Lettie is just the right weight in her arms and she has so much thinking to do before morning.  So many decisions to make before she faces Zelda again.


	2. Chapter 2

She goes through the speech she’d been mentally rehearsing all the way home once again on the front porch.

 

She will lay everything out in front of Zelda like so many puzzle pieces—this child, this family, this life, _her_ —and Zelda can decide if she wants what she is offering.

 

Though in the end, her _own_ response is settled, was never in question.

 

She will stay.  

 

It hadn’t taken a dark night of the soul to reach that conclusion.

 

* * *

 

The sunlight always casts the kitchen amber this time of morning.

 

Zelda is the one dark spot.

 

All the anger seems to be gone from her.  She looks nothing more than a shadow.

 

She will not run to Zelda’s side and apologize.

 

 _Peine forte et dure_.  

 

Nor will she stand mute.

 

She makes her offer to Zelda--mother or aunt?--and waits for either the stones to roll away or for more to fall to her chest.

 

Zelda looks at her in a dazed way.  She takes her time in answering.

 

“After what I said?”

  
Hilda still feels like something deep inside has been scalded.  

 

She won’t _forget_ , doesn’t think she could even if she tried, but she can _forgive_ her sister anything.

 

Zelda has been testing that ability since they were still in the nursery.

  
  
“You’re a horrible sister, Zelda.”

 

That is the simple truth.  

 

And it is as much her fault as it is Zelda’s.  

 

_Hadn’t she done nothing but reward her sister’s moods and tempers and violent tendencies decade after decade?_

 

“But generally you’ve been good at the whole mothering thing.  Despite the last few months and Sabrina’s current opinion.”

  
  
She needs Zelda to mend things with Sabrina. She will insist on this point. Zelda can lie to her if she must, but she cannot let the girl think she is something less because of who her mother was. Diana was no one to be ashamed of and Zelda knows it.

 

* * *

 

Zelda’s tears are rare as diamonds but they’ve fallen like rain in this kitchen lately.

 

They have always affected her.

 

She’d cry more than Zelda when her sister was whipped as a child, which sometimes brought Zelda’s wrath--“I will give you something to cry about, Hildegard”—and other, rarer times a Zelda who would let her comfort and fuss and hold to her tender heart’s desire.

 

Zelda offers her hand, but Hilda needs to know what it means.

 

“It will be years before this one is a teenager.”

 

Her chest lightens, but she still needs her to say it, even if she can’t stop the smile that’s starting anymore than she can stop herself from lacing her fingers with Zelda’s.

  
“You are going to get so fat.”

 

For once she doesn’t mind the commentary about her weight.

 

Zelda’s love language has always been fairly inarticulate.

 

  
“I know.”  Her cheeks hurt from grinning. “Isn’t it extraordinary?”

 

Zelda smiles. _Finally_. It’s tired but genuine.  

 

She goes happily into Zelda’s lap, let’s herself be drawn close and wraps her arms around Zelda’s neck.

 

They haven’t done this in quite some time and she hadn’t realized how much she had missed it.

  
  
“I love you.”

 

Maybe it is more like emotional Tourette's, what Zelda has.

 

She mouths, “I know,” but also still needs to know.  

  
  
“I need to know that you’ll love this baby too.”

 

Zelda’s fingers fidget with a button on her dress, near her lap.

 

  
“I promise I will try.”

 

* * *

  
It isn’t often that Zelda lets her see her like this.  

 

Sometimes she’s caught a glimpse right before a particularly painful death.

 

It’s the middle of the day but dusk in their room; still, her older sister hides her face against her neck.  

 

The things Zelda says--Hilda marvels at how so much of it could have been out of her own mouth.  

 

They really should talk to each other more.

 

She comforts Zelda where she can, threads her fingers through hair that needs to be brushed, trails her fingers up and down Zelda’s spine the way she used to ask for when they were young and she couldn’t sleep.

 

She breaks into Zelda’s rambling monologue only occasionally:  “Was that dream before or after the Yule Lads put Lettie in the oven?”

 

“Before.  But that did bring it to mind again.”

 

She tells Zelda about her plan from years ago, and as expected, Zelda perks up at any opportunity to call her silly.

 

“You in a ménage à trois.”  This ground is still slippery; Zelda is holding back but adds, “The very idea.”  

 

* * *

 

“You haven’t slept.”

 

“Neither have you.”

 

“We have hours before anyone is home.”

 

They settle down, Hilda’s chest pressed against Zelda’s back, a habit shaped by years of Zelda pretending that she was doing Hilda a favor by letting her sleep next to her.

 

“You know,” Hilda muses, “I’ll have to be the little spoon in a few months.”

 

“We are not silverware.  But I suppose I can indulge you--so long as it is temporary.”  

 

* * *

 

The phone in the hall wakes them some time surprisingly near dinner.

 

She only hears Zelda’s side of the stilted conversation--with Sabrina, given Zelda’s tone:  “Fine. _Yes_. She came home this morning. Yes.”

 

“Sabrina is having dinner at the Putnam's,” Zelda announces from the doorway.  “And I assume Ambrose is off enjoying his young man’s company somewhere other than our attic.  That just leaves the two of us.”

 

Zelda’s cheeks blush the faintest pink and her voice goes vulnerable-formal as she says, “Might I suggest we share a plate of yesterday’s leftovers.  Here. I’ll prepare it and you can rest.”

 

“You’re going to set a dangerous precedent, you know.”

 

“Maybe I just don’t want you to wander too far from my bed.”

 

* * *

 

They don’t always _fuck_.

 

Sometimes it is very much “making love,” though Zelda scoffs if ever she refers to it that way.

 

But that’s what she would call what they just did, what’s left them all contented sighs and idle caresses.

 

Zelda’s head is on her chest.  Her finger had been drawing slow figure eights over her collar bone.

 

Zelda’s finger stills.

 

Hilda can feel her breath exhale warmly against her skin.

 

She giggles and scratches her nails over Zelda’s scalp to get her attention.

 

“You’re thinking about how much bigger they will get.”

 

Zelda shifts and looks down at her.

 

“What have I told you about reading my mind?”

 

“Didn’t have to.”  She loves the way Zelda’s hair falls around them when she shifts to her elbows.  “Just know you.”

 

“Can I help it if you have tits straight out of a school boy’s wet dream?”

 

“Must you always be so gross?”

 

This is a game:  Zelda says something to shock her. She scolds.

 

They both get what they want:  round two.

 

* * *

 

When she knocks on Sabrina’s door, there is a pause until she says, “Just me, love.”

 

Her niece looks at her as if she is torn between hugging her and yelling at her when she opens the door and stands aside for her to enter.

 

“I’m sorry you got pulled into the middle of this.”

 

Sabrina sits on the edge of her bed and fixes big brown eyes on her.

 

“Why do you let her talk to you that way?”

 

It’s a fair question, certainly--and if one of Sabrina’s boyfriends ever spoke to her like that, well, he’d quickly learn that Zelda isn’t the only auntie capable of violence.

 

She’s never claimed that her relationship with Zelda was healthy, though.  She’s also never sat and thought about its ramifications on Sabrina.

 

She sits next to her now, bumps her shoulder against her niece’s.

 

“She only means about half of it.”  A generous estimate.

 

“I wouldn’t blame you if you left--and stayed gone one day.” Sabrina bumps her shoulder back.  “Only you’d have to take me with you.”

 

“And leave poor Ambrose on his own with her?” she teases.

 

“No one is going anywhere,” she promises.

 

* * *

 

“Your Aunt Zelda didn’t mean what she said about you.”

 

She straightens the collar of Sabrina’s striped pajamas.

 

“We both know she did. At least a little.”

 

She squeezes Sabrina’s fingers.

 

“She was angry at _me_ and lashing out.”

 

“Because your baby is going to be half mortal like _me_.”

 

“Zelda _is_ an insufferable snob. But that doesn’t mean she loves you any less.”  

 

Sabrina’s lips half curl, unconvinced.  

 

Hilda tries again:  “How many times has she defied the Church for you?”

 

“A couple,” Sabrina admits.  “But _you_ were excommunicated for me.”

 

“It’s not a competition.  Though I _would_ clearly be the winner.”

 

She leans in close because this is important:  “She loves you—as if were her own. We both do.  You know that, don’t you? That I love you to absolute bits?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Sabrina’s smile reaches her eyes.

 

* * *

 

“So I guess the two of you didn’t finally make a magic baby together?”

 

She laughs, remembering Sabrina’s 7th birthday wish for a younger sibling--obviously, easily made through her aunties’ magic and customized to her specifics:  a sister, aged-six, not taller than her, who liked to be the O’s in Tic Tac Toe.

 

“I’m afraid not, possum.”

 

“And you trust her with this?”

 

“I do.”  

 

She plays with a curl of Sabrina’s silvery hair, misses briefly the golden blonde.

 

“I know it’s hard, but please try to forgive your aunt. She’ll apologize soon and you know that isn’t easy for her.”  

 

She pushes the curl behind Sabrina’s ear.

 

“I’m sorry you got pulled into the middle of it yesterday.”

 

“Let’s just say it was the world’s best birth control.”

 

Sabrina’s brow furrows and she braces herself for what might be to come.

 

“Did you get pregnant on purpose, Aunt Hilda?”

 

That’s easily answered:  “No. I’ve decided to call it a _happy accident_.”

 

“So you are happy about it?  She didn’t ruin it?”

 

“No. Zelda and I had a very long talk.”

 

Eye-rolling of the Zelda variety, although Hilda would never tell her niece that.

 

“The kind with _shouting_ or the kind with _moaning_?” Sabrina asks.

 

“Watch it, miss.  The kind with _talking_.”

 

White lies are sometimes okay.

 

“I know I said you should leave.”  Sabrina’s fingers grip the sleeve of her robe.  “But you’re not going to go looking for him are you?”

 

“No. This baby,” she glances down to where there is absolutely no sign of a baby and won’t be for some time yet.  “This baby belongs to us. Me and Zelda and you and Ambrose.”

 

She pats Sabrina’s arm and moves to stand.

 

“Now. Sleep, I think.”

 

Sabrina hugs her and pulls her close.

 

“I love you, Auntie Hilda. You’re going to be a great mom.”

 

Hilda hugs her tighter.

 

“Too tight.”

 

“Brought it on yourself.”

 

* * *

 

She’s still sniffly but in a good way when she joins Zelda in bed.

 

When she pulls the cord on their lamp and moves to hold her sister, Zelda stops her.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“Practicing.”  

 

Zelda’s arm wraps around her waist.  She tucks her chin into her shoulder and curls her knees tightly behind hers.

 

“I can see the appeal.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't changed anything I had written/outlined before Part 2 aired. I know some plot lines went in another directions but I'm just gonna run with this. Sorry it took sooo long to update. :)

The _pregnant_ pause.

 

An _expectant_ air.  

 

Being with child is perfectly lovely so far.

 

It is not, however, all that time consuming.  

 

With the whole family now at the Academy more and more, she had thought she’d be kept busy running the mortuary on her own, but things--well, deaths--have been unusually slow.

 

Bad for business, good for Greendale, she supposes.

 

* * *

 

She starts the spring cleaning earlier than most years and is perhaps even more enthusiastic about the process than usual.  

 

This will be the last one without a baby underfoot for quite some time.  She well remembers how certain things had happily fallen off her to-do list when Sabrina was young.

 

“I didn’t sweep under this particular rug until Sabrina was six.” She sets the broom aside and kicks the rug until it rolls back out. “Our little secret if it doesn’t happen for another six.”

 

She had started talking to the baby in part to fill the silence that falls especially heavy over the big house at midday.  

 

She also feels the child is owed that much, to be loved and reassured even if she (Zelda _insists_ and secretly she _hopes_ ) was conceived in order to test a theory.

 

She had been made _for_ love of a sort. _To sort out_ if she could ever love anyone even the smallest fraction of the way she does Zelda.

 

Short answer:  no.

 

Long answer:  still no.

 

The habit eventually bleeds over into her evenings without her even realizing.

 

“I bet Caroline falls for that brooding stable hand instead of Lord Sinclair.”

 

Zelda appears from the bath, looking offended that she’d even suggest she had an interest in her bedtime reading.

 

“Wasn’t talking to you,” Hilda mutters half under her breath.

 

She turns a bit red as Zelda puts it together.

 

“She hasn’t even developed ears yet and you’re bothering her with that trash.”

 

Zelda pauses at her vanity to rub lotion over her hands.  

 

“Another reason _I_ will be the one who chooses what we read to her.”

 

* * *

 

The expression “be careful what you wish for” comes to mind a few weeks later.

 

A weekend starts with teen angst and ends with a death.

 

Ros and Harvey are dating.

 

_Officially._ Whatever that means.

 

Sabrina officially claims she is not bothered. She’s simply consoling Susie who _is_ bothered.

 

Not the world’s most convincing liar, her niece; but Hilda goes along with having Susie over for the weekend just the same.

 

She’s glad to have an excuse to make elaborate, indulgent desserts and more than happy to share in the “binge weekend,” her concoctions and cheesy horror films being on the menu.

 

Zelda spends most of her time complaining, even though she is secretly, _very secretly_ , fond of Sabrina’s mortal friends.

 

* * *

 

“Sundaes on Sunday,” Hilda declares, revealing at least half a dozen bottles of sauces and twice as many bowls filled with everything from chocolate chips to gummy bears to shaved coconut.

 

“I’ve never seen so many toppings,” Susie muses.

 

“This is impressive, Auntie, even for you.”

 

* * *

 

“ _Repulsive_.”

 

Zelda perches on the arm of the couch and pinches her face in distaste at the colorful, precariously balanced layers of Hilda’s sundae.  

 

Before she can defend her choices, her sister adds, “And you cannot blame your condition. I have seen you eat that before.”

 

Zelda’s finger swipes at a bit of strawberry syrup at the lip of the bowl, brings it to her lips.

 

“Is there more of this?”

 

“Why?  Do you like it?”  

 

A chorus of “shhh” comes from the other side of her.

 

“I thought you might,” Hilda whispers.  “There’s still loads of ice cream if you want.”

 

Zelda leans closer as the girl on the screen screams and trips over nothing in particular.

 

“I have no interest in ice cream.”

 

Hilda shivers and blames it on the ice cream.

 

* * *

 

“So even though you’re magic you still needed--”

 

“Let’s just say it didn’t involve a cauldron and leave it at that.”

 

* * *

 

Sunday evening’s marathon is interrupted by a phone call.

 

Zelda sweeps into the room and announces, “If you can be separated from the sofa long enough to deal with it, we have a body coming in tonight.”

 

Another young warlock ends up on their slab, delivered by the Greendale coroner’s office.

 

Hilda feels a sickening sense of dejavu.  

 

Because he’s also sent to them by two very mortal parents who have no idea of his magical heritage. They only know that they have lost a much loved and longed for child to a violent end.

 

Hilda spends ten minutes the next morning clutched in his mother’s arms, rubbing her back and sniffling along with her.

 

Later she tries not to think of their faces as she measures the wounds clustered across his chest.

 

The police will have done their investigation; she will do her own.

 

* * *

 

She appears in front of Zelda’s desk.

 

Zelda’s pen leaves a red streak across an exam she was marking as she starts.

 

“I need you to come home.”

 

“What’s happened?”

 

“Just come home now and bring Ambrose.”

 

* * *

 

“This is the emergency?”

 

She ignores Zelda’s tone.  She’s sure to hear more than enough of it later.

 

“Doesn’t all of this seem a bit _familiar_?”

 

Zelda, Ambrose, and Luke stare down at the body.

 

They do not disagree, nor do they seem as concerned as she is.

 

* * *

 

She wakes up feeling _off_.

 

Must look it too as Zelda asks, “Are you ill?”

 

“Why?  Do I have hives?”  

 

Her fingers sweep across her cheeks.  She doesn’t feel any lumps.

 

“You look pale.”  

 

Zelda’s hand reaches her forehead, checking for a fever; she shakes her head no.

 

“Might be a tinge of morning sickness at last.”

 

Like Sabrina, she isn’t a skilled liar.

 

“I’ll chew some ginger before breakfast.”

 

Zelda lets it pass for once.

 

* * *

 

As soon as breakfast is over and she’s alone, she cracks the egg.

 

The bowl fills with bright red blood strung with mucus.

 

Just as she’d expected.

 

Her hand falls to her abdomen.

 

Two yolks.

 

She swallows down a lump in her throat.

 

“Now this is nothing to worry about. Not really.”

 

She rinses the contents of the bowl down the sink. She scrubs the bowl clean and dries it, puts it away in its proper place in the cabinet.

 

_Routine_.  Not panic.

 

Because there is nothing to panic about.

 

“But we won’t take any chances. Not with you, my little love.”

 

“We’ll just take a little drive before lunch.” She starts to gather her purse and keys, finds a scarf near the door.  “Nice walk in the forest. Good for both of us.”

 

A blood curse on herself?  She could more than take care of that _herself_ ; the baby makes the situation more complicated.

 

* * *

 

“Spit into this.”

 

She obliges.  

 

“I don’t want to worry Zelda. She’s so busy these days. You’re better at these things than she is anyway. No one I trust more to help me sort this out.”

 

She’s rambling, but Desmelda ignores her other than to add, “She’s a midwife.”

 

“Well, you’re better at counter curses.”

 

She watches with Desmelda as her spit mixes with the powders in the little porcelain bowl.

 

“We’ve worked things out, by the way. We’re raising the baby together.”

 

“So she said the last time she was here.”

 

Desmelda pats her knee at her sudden frown. She still hasn't told Zelda where she’d gone that night.

 

“I pretended it was the first I’d heard of it.  Show me your nails.”

 

She holds her hands out and lets the older witch examine her fingernails.  

 

“Didn’t have to feign surprise at her reaction, though. Glowing with pride like she was the one with child.”

 

Hilda imagines that pride had felt much like the heat warming her chest now.

 

“Just double the amount of salt.”

 

“That’s all?”

 

“Should be.”

 

* * *

 

Sitting in the car later, she looks down at her lap.

 

“You have to be okay and we have to make another stop.”

 

* * *

 

She straightens the quilt across her lap and nudges towards the end of the bed with her toes as Zelda gets ready for the night.

 

“I got you a new toy.”

 

Zelda glances at the sleek black box sitting on the end of their bed.

 

“Oh?”  Her lips curl wickedly as her gaze turns to her.  “Whatever could it be?”

 

Hilda frowns.

 

“Not what you’re thinking. _Sorry_.”

 

Zelda opens the lid and considers its contents.

 

“How modern.”

 

“But enchanted to meet the highest witching standards.”

 

The stethoscope looks quite out of place when Zelda hooks it around her neck and it falls over the lace of her neckline.

 

“Well.” Zelda’s eyebrow arches suggestively.  “Gown up, sister.”

 

“Told you it wasn’t that kind of toy.”

 

Her teasing sounds awkward.

 

Nerves.

 

Even though she feels in her gut that everything is alright, she will feel _better_ after a second, well, a third opinion.

 

* * *

 

Even with magic amplifying the instrument's power and with her vast experience, Zelda still moves the scope several, agonizing, times before her mouth softens into a smile.

 

“Zelda.”  

 

She nudges her sister’s shoulder to get her attention.

 

“Perfect.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Listen.”

 

* * *

 

She does not comment on the pinky Zelda dabs at the corner of her eye.

 

Zelda does not comment on the relieved sob that escapes before she can stop it.

 

* * *

 

The lamp clicks on.

 

_Bugger._

 

Zelda is sitting up, staring at her.

 

_Bollocks_.

 

“Tell me what is going on.”

 

“Just needed the loo.”

 

“You have just bathed at the stroke of the witching hour.”

 

She sighs.

 

“A few weeks of salt baths and reversing candles and we’ll be right as rain.”

 

“A blood curse?”

 

She nods and perches on the side of her own bed.  Zelda has made no move to scoot over and let her back into hers.

 

“On both of you?”

 

“Seems like.”

 

“Who?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“This murder nonsense. Should have turned this over to the council and had nothing else to do with it. When I find out who did this—”

 

“They will be very sorry no doubt.”

 

She cuts off Zelda’s tyraid before she wakes the whole house.

 

“But we’ll be fine.”  She crosses the few feet back to the bed she’d left less than an hour ago.  “I saw Desmelda today and she agrees.”

 

“I will check her heartbeat—and yours—tomorrow morning and everyday after until I see you crack an egg fit for an omelet.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

She kisses her sister’s temple but Zelda still frowns.

 

She does, however, budge over.  Though she settles with her back to her, so when she says, “I’m sure it will clear up within the usual fortnight,” she’s talking to Zelda’s shoulder.

 

The spot Zelda had just occupied is warm. Her bed will be cold but she can’t let it go.

 

“But, Zelds, nothing will bring back that poor boy down in our freezer.”

 

Zelda turns abruptly.

 

“And that’s most unfortunate. It does not mean that you have to play Agatha Christie.”

 

“What if it were Sabrina or Ambrose or this one?  Wouldn’t you want someone to figure it out? For there to be justice?”

 

“It _isn’t_ any of them.”

 

“How is this any different than your secret crusade against Blackwood?”

 

“Fine! We will look into it together. I’ll make inquiries at the school. You do nothing without me. Are we clear on that point?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Now turn off the light unless you have anymore curses or hexes you need to sneak off to deal with.”

 

“That was the only one.”

 

This will certainly not be the first time Zelda has gone to bed angry nor the last.  

 

* * *

 

In the end, she almost wishes they hadn’t figured out the truth.

 

She is going to lose a child through this after all.

 

A lone photo in a box. One of many his parents had brought over to be displayed during the service.  

 

A familiar face.

 

* * *

 

She can’t help but feel responsible for some of Ambrose’s heart ache.

 

“He cursed your aunt and the baby. He’s lucky I didn’t garrote him on the spot.”

 

Zelda knows how. Hilda has experienced it first hand.

 

“We’re fine.”

 

She’s tired of her refrain.

 

“We welcomed him into our home.”

 

She ignores Zelda’s pacing and fuming—the smoke from her cigarette could almost be literal.

 

“I’m just so sorry, love.”  

 

She reaches for her nephew’s hand and squeezes.

 

“If I hadn’t given him a little nudge with that love potion, maybe you wouldn’t have been caught up in all this.”

 

“I thought you always said those only work if the real ingredients are there to start with,” Sabrina says.  “That you can’t create love out of nothing.”

 

“That’s true,” Hilda admits.

 

“So he must have really loved you even if he was a murderer.”

 

Ambrose smiles for the first time in hours when Sabrina adds, “He didn’t kill _you_.”

 

“Take Blackwood up on his offer. At least some good should come of this.”

 

Zelda finally settles down into her chair.

 

“He’s only doing this because he doesn’t want me nosing around anymore, Aunt Zee.”

 

“Still. Who knows how long it will be before you get another chance like this?” She stubs out her cigarette.  “And I see no reason why your ‘nosing around’ would have to stop if you moved to London. It is a very long game we are playing, I’m afraid.”

 

* * *

 

“Maybe a change of scene would do you good.”

 

She has to say it. Satan knows, Ambrose deserves his freedom.

 

But one look at his face and she blurts, “No one’s making you leave.  You can stay right here with us if you want, for as long as you want.”

 

“I know, Auntie. But I’m going.”

 

She sniffles; Ambrose sighs.

 

“You’re going to tuck me in, aren’t you?”

 

“Yes and I might even sing a bit."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya'll. This is tooth-meltingly sweet and I'm sorry.

She wants Zelda early in the morning when her sister is still half asleep and pliable.

 

She wants to drag her upstairs the second she comes home in the evenings. Dinner be damned. (Sabrina enjoys take-out anyways.)

 

She only thought she understood why there were so many adjectives that apply to both food and to sex.

 

She is ravenous and Zelda is cinnamon between her thighs. She craves her, heady and spicy, morning and night.

 

Her days she fills with baking. She revisits old family recipes that bring the past to mind by way of her stomach.

 

The baby doesn’t care for Aunt Wilhelmina’s coconut curry stew—the only time she feels queasy is after eating it—but would have her eat grandmother’s cottage loaf with every meal.

 

All the cooking passes the time between Zelda riding her mouth and Zelda taking her fingers to her knuckles.

 

_Cunt struck._

 

That’s what she is.  

 

She hadn’t thought about that term in ages but she’d heard it again in a movie Sabrina and Susie were watching about poor Queen Anne—may she rest in peace.

 

She remembers the term being applied to more than one of Zelda’s suitors at the Academy.

 

She’d been furious every time she’d heard it—the very idea of reducing her sister to one simple part of her anatomy, as delicious as she knew that to be even then.

 

But she knows what they meant now. She can’t think of a more apt term for what she is experiencing.

 

It’s unfortunate that this personal heatwave is coinciding with a far more literal one in the town of Greendale.

 

When a pregnancy lasts more than a year, there is no way to avoid the summer, though.

 

She could do without the record temperatures.

 

She could _not_ do without what Zelda’s tongue is currently doing with a piece of rapidly melting ice.

 

* * *

 

She’s left Zelda getting redressed upstairs when the doorbell chimes.

 

 _He_ is the last person she wants to see.

 

His eyes narrow and sweep over her form.  

 

Any pleasantly lingering effects from her morning are chased away.

 

“Ah, I see the rumors _are_ true.”

 

Faustus Blackwood brushes past her into their foyer, smug and amused.  The bastard.

 

“Won’t you come in?” she mutters under her breath and closes the door.

 

“What a pity it is you’re still excommunicated.”  

 

She’s swallowing back a retort on how it was a pity _he_ was the one who _made_ that proclamation when his hand suddenly leaves his cane and lands on her swollen belly without so much as a by-your-leave.

 

“A new Child of Night would be cause for celebration.”

 

Talon-sharp nails pinch through the fabric of her dress.

 

She’s about to push his hand away when Zelda’s voice carries through the room and has the same effect.  

 

“ _Faustus_. To what do we owe this honor?”

 

His attention immediately focuses on her sister.  

 

 _And why wouldn’t it?_  Zelda has posed herself like a starlet at the bottom of the stairs.

 

“More tediousness with the board of trustees I’m afraid, Sister Zelda.”

 

“ _Please_ ,” Zelda sweeps across the space.  Hilda can still see the color high in Zelda’s cheeks from earlier. “We can talk in the office.”

 

He follows—of course, he follows the sway of Zelda’s hips—but lingers in the doorway.

 

He smiles, looks to Zelda then to her.

 

“Perhaps later the three of us can discuss your coming back to the Church.”

 

Zelda’s smile pinches. Hilda can only imagine her own expression.

 

“I’ll think on a suitable penance,” he adds.

 

Before she can respond, Zelda answers for her: “That would be most beneficent of you.”

 

The door closes.

 

* * *

 

She wipes her forehead with the back of a gloved hand and stares at the carnage in front of her.

 

She should have known better than to garden angry.

 

The tomatoes will taste as sour as her mood and she has ruined her turnip greens.

 

But she refused to skulk about her own house while that man plays lord of the manor with her sister.

 

That Zelda had stayed on as choir mistress and taken on other classes here and there at the Academy is bad enough.  But now she’s back to taking _private meetings_ behind closed doors with Blackwood again?

 

She’d like to think Zelda simply _wouldn’t_ now.  But she knows Zelda well enough to know that she _would_ for the _right_ reasons.

 

* * *

 

A very familiar shadow falls over the row of cabbage in front of her.

 

She ignores it.

 

The toe of a designer pump pokes into the greens.

 

“You’ve ruined those.”

 

“Like you would even know the difference.”

She glares at her sister.  

 

Waves of anger bubble to the surface.  The last time Zelda had been in the garden she had brained her with a hammer for sowing seeds of doubt in Sabrina.  Now she has the gall to stand there--

 

“I didn’t expect him to turn up here.”

 

 _Here_.  

 

It boils over.

 

“Did you not get his cock out of your system before?”

 

She jabs the trowel back into the ground.  

 

The hand that had been shielding Zelda’s face from the sun moves as she crosses her arms over her chest and stares down at her.

 

“You’re playing the wrong role, Hilda.  I’m the jealous one.”

 

“You just don’t pay attention.”

 

“I’m trying to make things better. You know that. Especially for Leticia and for _ours_.”

 

“He is dangerous--to _all_ of us.”

 

“Which is exactly why he needs to be dealt with.”

 

“Why does it have to be _you_?  Why _now_?  I don’t know why you can’t leave things alone.  Unless there _is_ some other reason--”

 

“Come inside.  It’s hot out here and you’ve gone all red.”

 

So bloody patronizing.  

 

Zelda has spoken to her this way for as long as she can remember, but it has gotten worse with the baby.  Sometimes she finds it a bit sweet, Zelda’s form of concern.  Other times . . .

 

“If my blood pressure is high, it’s because of _you_ and not the gardening.”

 

When Zelda ignores her and offers her a hand, she brushes it aside.

 

“I can manage.”

 

Zelda’s squint has nothing to do with the sun.

 

“Manage then.”

 

She turns on her heel.

 

She takes no more than two steps away when Hilda feels something she’s never experienced before.

 

“Zelda.”  

 

“I’m done arguing.”

 

“ _Zelda_.”

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

“ _She moved_.”

 

* * *

 

“Give me your hand.”

 

“We both know it is far too early for anyone else to be able to feel her,” Zelda scolds even though she is already kneeling beside her.

 

“Humor me.”

 

Lined eyes roll but Hilda isn’t fooled.  She guides Zelda’s hand over the place where she had felt the odd sensation.

 

One of them is trembling.

 

“What does it feel like?”

 

Zelda’s other hand has made its way to her belly by the time she answers:  “Like a bubble . . . floating in the sky.” 

 

The eye roll this time is genuine.  

 

“Only the sky is your uterus.”

 

Zelda neatens the curl of her hair and stands.

 

“It figures that a child of yours would quicken in the middle of a vegetable garden.”

 

“As much as it figures that a child of _yours_ would in the middle of an argument.”

 

Zelda smiles.

 

“Well.  The odds were in favor of that one.”

 

“Help me up and don’t be smug about it.”

 

* * *

 

“If there’s something you need, that I’m not doing, you’ll tell me?  And not get it from him?”

 

“Hilda.”  Zelda’s voice is close at her ear.  “I’m surprised either of us can walk straight the way we’ve been at each other.”

 

She’s glad it’s dark so Zelda doesn’t see exactly how much her face burns.

 

“You know what I mean.  I don’t like doing those things but--”

 

“I don’t need any of that now.  Just you.”

 

* * *

 

“Zelda and Blackwood. How do they get on at the Academy?”

 

She can’t believe she has sank to this level.  Needling her niece about Zelda’s behavior.  It’s shameful.

 

Sabrina frowns. She isn’t stupid.

 

“He leers at her in a way that makes me throw up a little in the back of my mouth.”  A hand falls to her arm.  “But he leers at a lot of people that way. It isn’t strictly an Aunt Zelda thing.”

 

Sabrina smiles at her.  

 

Clearly her niece realizes how pathetic she has become.

 

“I would tell you if there was anything going on.  But there isn’t.”

 

* * *

 

“What do you find so amusing about our niece’s behavior?”

 

“Nothing.  It’s just I think she,” Hilda dips her chin towards the ever-expanding bump separating her from the table, “quite enjoys your lecturing Sabrina. Either that or she is perfecting her clog dancing in-utero.”

 

“Just wait until you’re on the receiving end, baby.  Then it won’t be so funny.”

 

Sabrina leans until her hand can pat Hilda’s belly.

 

Hilda watches Zelda briefly fight the same impulse before giving in.

 

Zelda’s eyes dart back to Sabrina.

 

“Do not think that this has made me forget today’s scene in the dining hall.”

 

* * *

 

“It seemed like a good idea at 16.”

 

Hilda dismisses her own middle name as a suggestion and offers Zelda’s instead:  “Phiona isn’t bad.”

 

“Phiona is beautiful.  However, even I am not vain enough to name our baby after myself.”

 

* * *

 

“Do you _not_ want her to be part of the Church? To be able to grow in her powers?”  

 

“If it’s what she wants, but she hasn’t even been born yet, Zelda.”

 

“She’ll have no decision to make if she’s born to an excommunicated mother and a mortal father!”

 

Hilda had hoped she’d have at least a few more years before they were having this particular argument.

 

“Do you have any idea what I went through to get this?”  

 

Not for the first time this evening, Zelda waves a letter at her, a missive from the High Priest himself stipulating the terms by which she could rejoin the Church of Night.

 

“I can imagine.”

 

It sounds exactly as she had meant it.

 

She doesn’t expect Zelda to jerk her by the arms and hold her fast.

 

“Let go.”

 

“No.  Read my mind.  See for yourself.  Once and for all.”

 

She will not.

 

“I don’t want to see it.  I believe you.” 

 

She isn’t convincing on the last point.  She _has_ tried to convince herself.

 

“Do you really?  Because you keep bringing it up.”  Zelda’s face is close to hers; Zelda is dangerously angry.  “Obviously I’m not to be trusted.  Can’t keep my word. Can’t keep my legs closed.”

 

“Don’t.”

 

She tries to pull away again but Zelda will have none of it.  Her fingers tighten.  There will be bruises.

 

“There were, of course, the times when I was a student but those hardly count.  What you want to know about is how I fucked him here where we are standing, moments after you left the room.”  Zelda looks at the rug under their feet. She can only watch her sister’s face in horror as she goes on. “How we whipped ourselves until we both came right next to your bed.  I’m surprised you didn’t find blood on the quilt and know sooner. We met in the dungeons of the Academy.  My house calls.  Sometimes a cane.  Sometimes something more creative.  And then I got on my knees in his office and offered oh so sweetly.  No more troubling questions when he’s coming in my mouth. There you have it.”

 

Zelda lets her go and she takes an unsteady step back.

 

“Now tell me how that mortal took you and we will be even.”

 

She rubs at her arms even though she meant not to.

 

“ _Hilda_.”

 

Zelda’s turn to sound frightened.

 

“I’m still breathing so you are exercising some self-restraint at least.”

 

* * *

 

“It’s too cold out.”

 

“I’m counting on it to have cooled you off.”

 

Zelda’s hand flicks in response.  A bit of red ash falls past the rail of the porch and disappears.

 

“And I’ve come to apologize.”

 

She’s right behind Zelda but her sister doesn’t turn, doesn’t acknowledge her in any way.  

 

“I shouldn’t have kept on after you said it was over.  I do believe you.”

 

It might be easier to say this to Zelda’s back.

 

“I know it’s wrong of me--” Her fingers spread over a tense shoulder blade.  “That it goes against everything we were ever taught.”  They bunch into the fabric.  “But I have hated every single one of them.  Everyone who has ever touched you.”

 

She had giggled in excitement about the romantic details, blushed at the more graphic ones Zelda loved to share. All an act. She had hated all of it.

 

She ends up with her cheek against Zelda’s spine.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

She can feel Zelda start to laugh before she hears it.

 

“I think we both remember how graciously I reacted to sharing you.”

 

“What a mess we are, the pair of us,” she says as Zelda finally turns and faces her.

 

“Let me think about this offer.  We have a little time yet.”

 

Zelda nods and shivers.

 

It’s only natural to step into Zelda’s arms, to shiver in turn when her sister’s hands slide inside her cardigan to rest on her lower back.

 

Zelda smiles as she is promptly kicked.

 

“Someone is all riled up.”

 

“I’ll never get to sleep.”

 

“Since that’s partially my fault, shall I help you find a way to pass the time?”

 

She likes the feel of Zelda’s hand tilting her chin up, the way Zelda is looking at her now.

 

“I would like that.”

 

She likes the hands sliding down to cup her bum, the fingers that are bunching up her dress.

 

 _Like_.

 

What an understatement.

 

She may have gotten ahold of herself and tempered the drive of a couple of months ago, but she had not stopped reacting to Zelda like a sex-starved teenager. Just the thought of running her fingers up Zelda’s inner thigh makes her—

 

Loud footsteps and a throat clearing behind them.

 

“On the front porch?”

 

One of Zelda’s arms stays wrapped around her as they turn to Sabrina.

 

“Might I say your presence here is rather unexpected as well--as you are currently grounded?”

 

“Not as of yesterday,” the girl counters.

 

They both look to her to take their side.

 

“She’s right.”  

 

Sabrina grins in triumph.  

 

Hilda leans closer to her sister and more quietly adds, “And perhaps it’s best she wasn’t here for earlier.”

 

Sabrina’s grin fades.

 

“I’m going to assume you were fighting and not something worse and tell you both goodnight.”

 

* * *

 

“That was the last one.”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“There is not a single comfortable position left to lay in.  I’m not going to sleep again until she’s born.”

 

“Want me to levitate you all night?”

 

“That’d be tempting if only you didn’t always, _accidentally_ bump me into things.”

 

“Can I help it if you flail?”

 

* * *

 

Zelda has lingered behind, sipping on an espresso.

 

“I was thinking.”

 

Hilda glances over from her spot at the island.

 

“Always dangerous.”

 

“Please do not be flippant, Hilda.  I’m trying to have a serious conversation.”

 

“Right.”  She tosses the half lemon onto the counter and wipes her hands down her apron. “Go on then.”

 

“You are unwed and about to give birth and the two of us are committed to each other.  I wondered, would you like to have a binding ceremony--before the baby is born?”

 

Eventually, she closes her mouth that had crept open of its own accord during Zelda’s proposition.  

 

“Oh, Zelds.  How sweet.”  She closes the few feet between them.  “And old fashioned.  And patronizing of you.” She cups Zelda’s chin and gives her a quick peck to the lips.  “But, no.”

 

One glance at Zelda’s face as she pulls away and she feels like a complete ass.

 

 _“You_ wanted to?”

 

“I thought _you_ would appreciate it.”  Zelda’s newspaper snaps back into place like a wall between them.  “You’re the one who’s always been obsessed with romantic nonsense like that.”

 

“Look at me.”

 

She’d kneel by Zelda’s chair and make her if she thought she could get back up from that position.  Instead she does something she has wanted to do many times:  snatch the paper from her sister’s hands and toss it to the floor.

 

Zelda would be horrified to know how clearly her emotions shown despite the mask of anger.

 

“You’ve made yourself clear.”

 

“I haven’t.  Obviously.”

 

She takes Zelda’s face in her hands.  Zelda will see this and understand this.

 

“I-- _we_ are bound to you by far more than a ribbon and a vow.”

 

She kisses the corner of Zelda’s mouth.

 

“We are yours.”  

 

Her bottom lip.

 

“You are ours.”

 

Let’s herself get lost in the taste of her.  

 

“I don’t need any romantic nonsense to make that true. You know that, don’t you?”

 

Zelda nods.

 

“Say it.”

 

“I do.”

 

“Good.”

 

She goes back to zesting her lemons.  Zelda isn’t the only one with a wall.

 

“Mind you, I’m not saying never.  Just not right now, not because of her imminent arrival.”  

 

“That was not--”

 

“I know.”

 

She knows it isn’t that _entirely_. However, she has _not_ rejoined the Church yet and Zelda has _not_ stopped reminding her of that fact.

 

* * *

 

“I’m trying not to be jealous that my not-even-born-yet sister seems to have more presents under the Christmas tree than I do.”

 

Sabrina eyes them both from her spot on the rug near the fire.

 

Zelda takes another sip of her mulled cider.

 

“For the last time, it is a Yule tree, and if you had told us earlier that you wanted nappies and burp cloths, we could have gotten some for you too.”

 

On rare occasions Zelda can be quite funny.

 

“I’ll make do with my one or two small gifts.”

 

She makes sure they do not miss her emphasis on the number or size of the presents.

 

Hilda rolls her mug of hot coco between her palms and smiles at their banter.

 

It’s a welcome distraction.

 

Besides, she happens to know that one of those _small_ gifts is quite extravagant for a seventeen-year old.  

 

Zelda had not been entirely convinced that Sabrina was responsible enough to be given one of their mother’s rings.  

 

Hilda has faith in their niece.

 

* * *

 

The baby is coming today.   _Of all days_.

 

Hilda is sure of it.  

 

She is also sure that she doesn’t want to alarm anyone yet.  She knows how these things go.

 

However, Sabrina walks in on her gripping the kitchen counter a bit too hard.

 

“You’d know if you were in labor, right?” her niece asks.  “And you’d definitely tell Aunt Zelda, wouldn’t you?”

 

“Not a word from you. Could be false labor. And even if it isn’t, it could take ages.”

 

* * *

 

She’s almost relieved when she can’t hide her pain anymore.  There’s something comforting in simply letting Zelda take care of her.

 

 _Almost_.

 

Witches aren’t punished the way mortals are, but there is pain and there is pressure. That is simply biology.

 

The worried look that had marred Zelda’s face at all the “checkups” she’d insisted on long past the incident with the blood curse is gone, replaced instead by calm determination.

 

* * *

 

Zelda paces with her up and down their hallway.

 

It would be annoying, her sister right on her heels when she feels so very miserable, but every time she pauses, Zelda’s fingers knead into her lower back and she thanks Satan for her being there.

 

Later, Zelda is ready with a cool cloth to her forehead, her chest, before she asks.

 

Zelda presses light kisses to her temple, her knee.

 

Her sister has always been surprisingly good at this, at bedside manner, for someone who was not what she would call, even in her most generous moments, a people-person.

 

* * *

 

She listens to Zelda about her breathing.

 

She adopts a number of ridiculous positions throughout the night at her body’s own prompting.

 

* * *

 

The end is far away yet but she is more tired than she has ever been.

 

She simply needs to sleep and regroup.

 

And then . . . and then she can finish this.

 

* * *

 

If only Zelda would hush.

 

Her sister’s voice has gone from comforting to shrill.

 

“--people who thought you were weak. All the times I called you a ninny--and worse.  Prove them wrong, prove me wrong and bring our daughter into the world.”

 

* * *

 

Zelda’s face at this moment is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen.

 

Blue eyes blinking through happy tears but fixed on the squirming form in her arms. Her face painted with pure and utter amazement.

 

Zelda with their daughter.

 

 _Heaven_ , if she may blaspheme.

 

And then she’d seen _her_.

 

She hadn’t thought it possible to love anything this much and so completely.

 

* * *

 

She wakes to find Zelda beside her, deep in quiet conversation with the small bundle in her arms.

 

“I didn’t dream her then.”

 

“No.  She’s real.”

 

Hilda shifts to be able to take her when Zelda carefully passes her over and what seems like a million muscles protest.

 

“Ouch.”

 

“How are you feeling?  Really?”

 

“Definitely well enough to count her fingers and toes again.”

  
 

“They are all still there.”

 

That lovely lopsided grin that is so rare appears as Zelda admits, “I’ve checked twice.”

 

Lilith bless them and let her daughter inherit that grin.

 

“And what about your name, my love? Have you decided if you feel like a Teddy Spellman?”

 

“She’s very happy with Theodora.”

 

* * *

 

It might burst.  Her heart.

 

It’s a silly thought but surely it has happened for far lesser reasons.

 

Zelda so proudly, and carefully, fixing the baby in Sabrina’s arms.

 

Sabrina so happy to hold her new sister.

 

She trusts between the two of them that they could find a way to resurrect her if she does indeed die of happiness.

 

* * *

 

“Are you still sure you trust me to be her mother?”

 

“You should see yourself, Zelda. You’re already her mother.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will start where "When a Spoon Falls" did and, honestly, I can't guarantee it will be any less sappy. Guess that is my mood lately.

**Author's Note:**

> I might be a little slower in terms of posting updates. Busy at work and finishing up a couple of other little fics I had started before this one.


End file.
